Blockchain, Coupons and Rebates: How The Blockchain is Going To Change The Way You Shop and Mine Cryptocurrency.
This came from an article our colleague, Jon Labrie, wrote a few months back and I made some edits to fit current the current conversation on state contracts and the blockchain in a real world scenario.
“Lately I’ve been working with GFT Exchange, a company with an established presence in the digital coupon marketplace that’s looking to integrate blockchain tech into their technology stack to address a significant problem in coupon and rebate redemption: fraud. It’s nearly impossible to track who, exactly, is redeeming a coupon or rebate that’s printed and distributed in traditional ways, e.g. newsprint. This presents many opportunities for bad actors to ‘game’ the collection and redemption process.”
Did the consumer get the discount, or the store, due to some other non-qualifying purchase? Did the same consumer use multiple copies of a coupon or rebate to get discounts she/he wasn’t entitled to under the stated terms? These are just two examples out of dozens. It adds up to something like half a billion dollars a year in fraud surrounding an activity that many people engage with on a daily basis.
Of course you can generate single-use coupons for download to a mobile device — gft.exchange already has those solutions in place for a number of grocery chains — but the introduction of a decentralized, shared ledger that cryptographically secures the integrity of transactions and privacy of everyone involved — customer, store, and manufacturer — fundamentally changes the game.
For example: at Smart & Final, customers today can scan their grocery receipt using their mobile device to generate a coupon, which is ‘presented’ with an Augmented Reality animation. By integrating blockchain technology into the process, grocery chains and brands can offer a cryptographically-secure coupon which ensures that only the intended consumer receives the discount or rebate.
We are going to be launching the CBT Token in this November at a major retail chain in California that will deliver the first “in app” crytpo wallet embeded into a grocery app where customers will be able to earn CBT Tokens while shopping for their favorite consumer goods.
Encouraged by the rapid progress the Ethereum Foundation has made with the Ethereum core, as well as the impending releases of other crucial infrastructure components like the Raiden network, Swarm, and Whisper, we’ve chosen to develop GFT Exchange’s next-generation digital couponing applications atop the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem. This will not only mitigate fraud, but also enable advanced coupon and redemption schemes tied to specific customers, and give brands greater control over budgeting for national and custom programs.
Two developments in the Ethereum ecosystem, Plasma and Toshi, are part of our tech road map to support Scalable (billions of transactions) autonomous (standalone) Smart Contracts and the Toshi open source browser.
We encourage your thoughts on a globally connect loyalty coupon and rebate solution through CBT Tokens.
